"The penalty good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." - Plato

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Yes, Obama And Holder Did Obstruct Investigation

Attorney General is breathing a sigh of relief after the Inspector General's report seemed to absolve him of any responsibility in the Fast and Furious gun smuggling scandal. But that could be because the White House obstructed the investigation. Until and unless all evidence is yielded, the Congress is morally obligated to continue its investigation.

Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz confirmed
Thursday to a House panel that President Barack Obama’s White House
obstructed his investigation into Operation Fast and Furious.

The administration has also been accused of stonewalling the congressional investigation into the scandal.

“As we noted in the report — and, as you know, Congressman, we did
not get internal communications from the White House — and Mr. [Kevin]
O’Reilly’s unwillingness to speak to us made it impossible for us to
pursue that angle of the case and the question that had been raised,”
Horowitz testified in response to questioning from Texas Republican Rep.
Blake Farenthold during a House oversight committee hearing.

In the report, Horowitz’s team wrote that “[t]he White House did not produce to us any internal White House communications.”

Horowitz’s report said the Obama administration justified its
non-cooperation with the inspector general by claiming the production of
White House documents was “beyond the purview of the Inspector
General’s Office, which has jurisdiction over Department of Justice
programs and personnel.”

Kevin O’Reilly, a now-former White House official who was reassigned
to a State Department detail in Iraq after Fast and Furious became a
national scandal, also refused to cooperate with Horowitz’s
investigation.

About Me

I was born in Tombstone, Arizona, but moved to California in 1959 when labor strikes at the copper mines devastated the Arizona economy. I've been moving north ever since. Pullman is as far north as I care to live and I'm looking toward reversing the drift.